Won’t Be A Minute

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I am reading a history of Christianity – “The Closing of the Western Mind.” by Charles Freeman.

The early Christians clearly believe the Big Guy was just going to be out for a little bit.

His failure to return promptly caused a fair amount of consternation and disappointment, but theology is nothing if not flexible, and rather than admit error, new theories and interpretations filled the gap.

I have some serious believers in my immediate family and it’s truly astounding how the world is ever nigh and thus on the brink of Messianic redemption.

I mean it REALLY is astounding.

According to some Jewish texts (among others of course) things’ll be really bad right before the Messiah’s arrival. Some claim this form of “bad” implies haughtiness. Some would say that this “hautiness” implies people who lie.

Still with me here? Okay.

So my father tells me that all his life (he’a sbout 60) he’s never seen such a world full of lies as he sees today. The Democrats just lie, Lie, LIE and don’t care about the truth at all. Every day there are more reports of their deceit. He’s never seen anything like this before and he’s adamantly convinced (or so he says – he won’t accept my wager to the contrary) that this implies Messianic redemption any day now.

Wow!

What drives me nuts about this (and I hope some of you can relate and I’m not the only son frustrated by the boorish logic of his progenitors) is that he has some historical comparisons to make. Aside from the fact they he’s been alive and observant for a few decades now and should be aware of the fact that politicians are pretty consistent liars (and that all of the liars don’t happen to be solely among his political opponents) he also has mental access to – at the very least – a few other eras of Jewish history (if not necessrily general or American history, though here too he’s not a total ignoramous) – how could he possibly be so biased by what he perceives as the negatives of the present that he fails to notice that however terrible the negatives are they’re in no way extraordinary on any historical scale.

Even if every Democrat lied about everything, they’d still be far behind Hitler’s success rate as a liar. How much of a blinkered Presentist do you have to be to view your own boring age as somehow worse than anything that ever existed?

The Newsmax guys (like Glenn Beck) appear to be part of the same nonsensical way of thinking. “If Jesus didn’t return NOW to save us from the Demoracts genocidal health care legislation that essentially hands the world over to the AntiChrist then – my Lord! – will he EVER return?!?!”

Need he come back? It would appear that one appearance was sufficient (and necessary) to all the wonders that we enjoy.

I love facts and the fact of the matter is that man’s progress from 2000 BC to 0 can be fairly described as progressing from small piles of rocks to large (albeit prettier) ones.

Then, God gave light to Man (Plato was a fifth columnist) and we progressed from piles of pretty rocks to: man on the moon, the internet, nuclear energy, and a world that is for the first time largely democratic with free markets.

What ever – but I think the point is that such wide ranging and relatively concurrent concepts such as Plato’s Dialectic and the Holy Trinity provide for the common person to aspire to heavenly perfections.